NEW YORK – Wal-Mart announced Thursday that it will require its suppliers to phase out 10 hazardous chemicals from personal care products, cosmetics and cleaning products sold in its stores.
It will also require the suppliers to disclose chemicals in those products.
The moves follow an announcement made by Procter & Gamble Co.., the world’s largest consumer product maker, earlier this month that it will eliminate phthalates and triclosan from its beauty products by 2014. In 2012, Johnson & Johnson pledged to eliminate phthalates, triclosan, formaldehydes and parabens from all its personal care products globally.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says that beginning in January, the company will monitor progress on reducing and eliminating the chemicals and will begin to publicly report on it in January 2016. The Bentonville, Ark.-based discounter did not immediately identify the chemicals, but experts believe that the germ-killing additive triclosan is on the list.
One step ahead of regulators
The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the safety of triclosan, commonly used in antibacterial soaps and other items. Some studies in animals have suggested that it could increase the risk of infertility early puberty and other hormone-related problems, though results from animal studies don’t always apply to humans.
“The objective of this policy is to help ensure that household cleaning, personal care, beauty and cosmetic products sold by Wal-Mart will minimize hazards to people or the environment,” Wal-Mart said in a statement.
The moves were quickly applauded by some environmentalist groups who said it was the first chemical policy of this scope by a global retailer.
Said Mark Rossi, co-director of Clean Production Action, a non-profit organization that designs tools to help companies make their products chemically greener:
[quote]Wal-Mart’s policy signals a new era of going beyond regulatory compliance to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals. Companies like Wal-Mart are realizing they need to be proactive instead of reactive to the rapidly increasing consumer demand for safer products. [/quote]
The initiative was announced at Wal-Mart’s annual meeting on sustainability.
Bicycles are an increasingly popular, affordable and practical transportation option. Many cities are making life easier for cyclists by building separated lanes, implementing bike-share programs and introducing regulations to reduce conflict between bikes and cars. You can now find bicycle sharing in 500 cities in 49 countries, including Beijing, Montreal, Chicago, Paris and Mexico City.
In my home city of Vancouver, we’re still waiting for a planned sharing program, but cycling is the fastest-growing transportation mode here, jumping by 40 per cent since 2008, from about 47,000 to 67,000 daily trips. This is mainly thanks to an ever-expanding network of bike lanes and routes.
The personal and societal benefits of getting out of your car and onto a bike are well-known: better mental and physical fitness and reduced health-care costs, less pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, often speedier commutes and significant cost savings, to name a few. Studies also show the exercise benefits of cycling exceed negative health effects from pollution and injury.
Still, despite the many arguments in favour of cycling, increased infrastructure always incites criticism – most of it unwarranted. And the behaviour of some cyclists doesn’t help.
Let’s consider some claims from opponents. Two main ones are that bicycling initiatives hurt local businesses and impede car traffic. Numerous studies show the opposite is often true: over the long term, business usually improves and car traffic is reduced. When bike lanes do affect car-commuting times, it’s often by a small amount.
Research by the New York City Department of Transportation found retail sales increased 49 per cent along Ninth Avenue after a protected bike lane was built, compared to just three per cent for the rest of Manhattan. A Toronto study focused on Bloor West Village found far more customers arrive by foot, bike or transit than by car and “visit more often and report spending more money than those who drive.”
As for impacts on car commuting, bike lanes often have a negligible or even positive effect. More people cycling means reduced car traffic – the real cause of gridlock and slowdowns. Not everyone can use a bike and sometimes cycling isn’t practical. But as people opt for alternatives to cars, the roads open up for those who must drive. A study by Stantec Consulting Ltd. found Vancouver drivers thought it took them five minutes longer to travel along a street with a new bike lane, but it actually took from five seconds less to just a minute and 37 seconds more.
But if we really want to increase safety for cyclists – and pedestrians and motorists – we all need to take responsibility for our behaviours. People navigating on foot must be aware of surrounding bikes, buses, cars and other people and not wander with their eyes fixed on electronic devices. Car drivers need to follow road rules and be more aware of cyclists and pedestrians. Some cyclists just need to be smarter.
A lot of criticism of the growing number of cyclists in cities is valid: too many blast through stop signs, don’t give pedestrians the right-of-way, refuse to signal turns, ride against traffic, don’t make themselves visible enough and use sidewalks. Many seem to have a sense of entitlement compelling them to ignore laws. It doesn’t take much to learn and follow the rules, and investing in proper gear – including lights and reflectors – is absolutely necessary. You’ll not only be safer; you’ll also be less likely to anger motorists, pedestrians and fellow cyclists.
Some jurisdictions have resorted to increased regulations and penalties to make cycling safer and to reduce conflicts between cyclists and drivers. In Chicago, bike riders face increased fines for disobeying traffic laws, as do motorists who cause bike accidents. The fine for “dooring” a cyclist (opening a vehicle door without looking and hitting a bike) doubled from $500 to $1,000.
There’s really no doubt: anything that increases bicycle use, from separated lanes to bike-sharing programs, makes cities more liveable and citizens healthier. Cyclists must do their part to build support for initiatives that make cycling easier, safer and more popular.
Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Communications Manager Ian Hanington.
Participants in a “Pink Ribbons” breast cancer fundraiser
It is estimated that over 22,000 women in Canada will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and nearly ten times as many in the United States. Almost a quarter of these people will die. Nobody knows why.
Yes, there are established risk factors, such as early commencement of menstruation, never breastfeeding a child, late onset of menopause, all of which increase a woman’s lifetime production of estrogen. Then there is the inheritance of the long-researched “breast cancer gene”. These risks apply to approximately 30% of breast cancer cases, leaving the vast majority unexplained.
Or are they?
For the past two decades, scientists like Devra Davis have been pointing the finger at “foreign” estrogens, contaminants introduced into the body from the environment, which can mimic the action of estrogen or alter hormonal activity.
There are two types. Some, such as those found in soy products, broccoli and cauliflower, occur naturally, are easily degraded and can actually reduce estrogen’s effects. (In fact, there is evidence to suggest that women who eat a diet rich in these natural estrogens have a reduced risk of developing breast cancer.)
Synthetic estrogens, on the other hand, are difficult for the body to break down and can amplify the effects of naturally-produced estrogen. These synthetic estrogens – found in certain pesticides, plastics, fuels and drugs – have proliferated ( along with breast cancer) since World War Two.
So, what do we know about these pollutants?
For one thing, their strength magnifies in the food chain as, say, microscopic traces on phytoplankton are consumed by small fish, then larger fish, then mammals. They’re also lipid (fat) soluble, ergo store themselves in fatty tissue, like, oh, you know, breasts.
For another, they can travel thousands of miles from their source before they are brought back to earth by cold climates. As a result, the people of Canada’s Arctic – recently listed by the Blacksmith Institute as one of the top 10 most polluted places on earth – bear the toxic body burden of their industrialized southern neighbours. Tragically, lab tests on the breast milk of some Inuit women suggest it should be treated as hazardous waste.
Which brings me to one of the most shocking statements I’ve ever heard.
It was made by breast cancer activist Judy Brady, who, at a women’s health forum in 1996, pointed out that women, unlike men, had a means of expelling these contaminants from their fatty tissue: through lactation. Yes, Brady said, there is more than one way breastfeeding can reduce a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer, but at what cost?
In an article in the current issue of Watershed Sentinel, Devra Davis details what is known about the role synthetic chemicals are playing in the current epidemic of breast (and other forms of) cancer.
She also explains how badly we have been betrayed for decades by our governments, saying: “At the 1971 launch of the so-called war on cancer, proof that how and where we live and work affects the chances we may get cancer was basically ignored. Astonishing alliances between naïve or far too clever academics and folks with major economic interests in selling potentially cancerous materials have kept us from figuring out whether or not many modern products affect our chances of developing cancer.”
In the speech Brady gave at that forum, she pointed out that the World Health Organization acknowledged in 1964 that 80% of cancers in industrialized countries were caused by human-produced environmental toxins. In other words, 80% of cancers are preventable.
You’d think women (and men) would be marching in the streets, demanding these carcinogenic chemicals be removed from our environment and our bodies. Actually, back in the early 1980s, activists like Brady were doing just that.
Unfortunately, their demand – that we start preventing breast cancer, instead of throwing billions of dollars at an ever elusive cure – did not sit well with the well-funded cancer research agencies or the drug companies. (Nobody ever got rich saying “eat your broccoli”.)
That women were angry was clear. That something was required to subsume their anger was even clearer.
Enter Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. At the time a wholly-owned subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries – one of the largest manufacturers of the chemicals implicated in the breast cancer epidemic – Zeneca makes tamoxifen, one of the most widely-prescribed breast cancer drugs. (Although some have questioned the efficacy of tamoxifen in actually preventing the development or recurrence of breast cancer tumours, it seems likely that taking it does increase the risk of women developing endometrial cancers.)
In 1984 Zeneca dreamt up and continues to largely control Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM). That pretty-in-pink month, with us again now, exhorts women to run, jump, leap or swim, not for prevention, but for that always just-around-the-corner cure. (Or they could hold a fundraising golf tournament – despite the increased risk of breast cancer from those pesticide-sodden courses.)
In an article explaining why she hates pink, Brady exposes BCAM for what it essentially is: a marketer’s dream come true.
Taking the lead in facilitating this corporate “pink washing” in the US is the Susan G. Komen Foundation. In January 2012 the Komen Foundation entered into a marketing agreement with the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF). According to their joint press release, “the two organizations will work with business partners to identify and develop products and programs available in both countries, with proceeds benefiting both organizations and the breast cancer cause.” Any mention of “benefiting” the cause by eliminating the production and discharge of the chemicals that cause breast cancer? Nope.
I have no wish to offend any of the many hopeful individuals who will be running – or doing anything else – during BCAM this October. However, I do believe, as my grandmother used to say, that an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.
So, I’ll be doing my own awareness raising: inviting friends round to watch the NFB’s excellent exposé, Pink Ribbons, Inc.
In September 1962 – 50 years ago this month – a book was published which changed the way we looked at the post-World War Two chemical revolution. Rachel Carson’sSilent Spring – a clarion call about the perils of pesticides – is largely credited with launching the modern day environmental movement.
Soon after its publication, the indiscriminate spraying of DDT on farm fields and suburbs in the US ended, followed in 1972 by an outright ban on its manufacture and use. Forty years later, DDT’s metabolite DDE can be found in the bodies of 95% of Americans.
These chemicals persist.
Rachel Carson wrote about the damage pesticides could do to humans and wildlife in doses as small as one part per million.
In 1996 another ground-breaking book was published. Our Stolen Future by Theo Colborn and Peter Myers details the wealth of scientific research highlighting the ability of many supposedly safe manmade chemicals (including still widely used pesticides) to mimic hormones and – in parts per billion – interfere with immune system, cognitive and reproductive development.
Put simply, there is every reason to believe that chemicals in our environment are making us sick, stupid and sterile.
Earlier this year, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released its annual guide to pesticide residues on domestic and imported produce. The guide highlights the worst of the worst, the dirty dozen fruits and vegetables which shoppers should replace with organic produce wherever possible.
Think all you have to do is wash and peel your fruit and vegetables before you eat them? Guess again. The majority of studies on which the EWG guide is based involved testing samples after they had been washed or peeled.
Most alarming were the number of samples contaminated with organophosphate (OP) insecticides.
A study by Stephen Rauch of BC Children’s Hospital has linked prenatal exposure to these known neurotoxins with lower birth weight and shorter gestation. Rauch notes that these pregnancies began after OPs were restricted for most uses. He also flags other studies linking prenatal exposure to OP insecticides with abnormal reflexes and reduced cognitive abilities.
In a worrying article in the current issue of Watershed Sentinel, children’s health expert Bruce Lanphear highlights the research linking exposure to environmental contaminants with increasingly common childhood illnesses and disabilities.
For example, OP insecticides have been strongly linked with dramatic increases in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), while the marine anti-fouling chemical tributyltin has been identified as an “obesogen” which can mimic the hormones involved in the development of obesity.
One of the several quotes from Rachel Carson which Lanphear uses in his article is the following: “Thalidomide and pesticides represent our willingness to rush ahead and use something new without knowing what the results are going to be.” Lanphear points out that the substantial and lifelong implications for children of exposure to environmental chemicals are subtle and often unlikely to be recognised.
In the month when the manufacturer of thalidomide finally issued an apology for the damage caused by its drug, Lanphear quotes environmental health expert David Rall, who once remarked: “If thalidomide had caused a ten-point loss of IQ instead of obvious birth defects of the limbs, it would probably still be on the market.”
In an article written for Environmental Health News to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring, the distinguished scientist Paul Ehrlich observes: “Many people have the impression that climate disruption is the worst environmental problem humanity faces, and, indeed, its consequences may be catastrophic. But the spread of toxic chemicals from pole to pole may be the dark horse in the race.”
Ehrlich thinks Rachel Carson would be appalled by our lack of progress in stemming the flow of toxic chemicals into our air, water, food and bodies.
Perhaps it’s too late. Perhaps we’re already too sick and stupid. I hope not.
